The East River between Manhattan and Queens, Titans Tower (local time: early evening)…
"Damn! It looks good!"
"Indeed it does, Victor. A renewal for us."
The other Titans — now joined by Wally West (Kid Flash), who had quit the team days before the "Judas Contract" operation was sprung on his friends by Deathstroke and Terra — nodded as Changeling slipped the full-body, life-sized portrait of Jericho onto the wall of the Great Hall where each member was displayed. Terra's portrait had been taken down — the young geo-kinetic had said "Burn the damned thing! I look like some sick kid on it!" when Changeling had offered it to her — and Robin's portrait had been changed to display him in his new identity as Nightwing. The X-Men, the Azuma Gang, Rampage, Wildflower, Carcajou, Shadow Weaver and Ataru were standing nearby; everyone had been teleported from the H.I.V.E. base in Colorado to New York City by the Shi'ar from their battlecruiser in orbit over Earth's largest city thanks to a call by Phoenix to Professor Xavier (currently a guest of the Imperial Guard as they awaited Lilandra's arrival on Earth in response to what nearly happened at D'Bari). Terra herself leaned against Ataru's side, with Rampage on the other side. Absent from the scene was Deathstroke himself; he had returned to his Manhattan penthouse so he could meet up with his friend and aide-de-camp, retired British Army colonel William R. Wintergreen.
"«At least they're healing,»" Tara whispered in Yizibajohei as she felt Ataru's fingers thread through her hair. "«God only knows, I didn't do much for them…»"
"«You probably did more for them than you think, Tara,»" Soul Searcher stated. "«Yes, they'll be harder to trust prospective new members…but because of that, they'll be more watchful, thus harder to take down in the long term.»"
"«True,»" the young Markovian-American mused. "«What's the news on Jace?»"
The telepath from Nakano smirked. "«Being dealt with as we speak.»"
"«Good.»"
Markovia, Castle Markov, that moment (local time: after midnight)…
"You…cannot do this…"
"Do not presume to judge what I can and cannot do, Helga," a cold voice declared. "You were involved in actions that harmed a student of mine. And brought harm to my final host and later adopted brother. Give me a sufficient reason to forgive such an action and I may spare your life. Do not succeed…and the hunter becomes the hunted."
Gasping as the horrible pain of the Heart-Blast Touch attack on her fragile body began to take its eventually fatal toll on her, the royal scientist of the House of Markov shuddered as she tried to gaze at her attacker. "No one escapes…!"
She then gargled as a dull crack! echoed from deep within her body, and then she collapsed to the floor. Gazing without any pity or other emotion at the woman who had caused Tara Markova so much harm, Moroboshi Negako could only shake her head before she turned to walk into the shadow portal that had been opened for her between Earth and Yiziba. Walking into it, she vanished, leaving a dead scientist and traitor to her very RACE behind, not to be discovered for a while to come…
On the roof of Titans Tower…
"Hey, Scott! Catch!"
Cyclops — who had slipped off his hood and goggles to put on his ruby quartz glasses — perked on hearing that voice, and then he effortlessly caught the tossed can of Red Bull sent to him by Nightwing. Like Scott Summers, the man born Richard Grayson had slipped off his mask; there were special defensive holographic fields around the Tower — one of the many improvements to the place installed by Victor Stone's father Silas after the current Titans came together two years before — to prevent people looking their way from the high-rises of Manhattan or Queens to spot something they shouldn't. "Thanks, Dick," the field leader of the X-Men said as he popped the can open and took a deep pull on the energy drink. "You're lucky you found Joe before we did."
A smirk. "Yeah. Never thought we'd get a mutant on our team even after we ended up teaming up with you guys to take on Darkseid," Dick mused as he sipped his own can of energy drink. "But he's got potential. Jean, Anne and Yomi checked him out, too. And he was WILLING to let that happen! Not an unkind bone in his body."
"You're not sore at Tara, are you?"
A shake of the head. "Lord knows, I personally should have suspected something was wrong the instant we learned that she was lying about her back story…but part of me just wanted to accept her as is, faults and all." A sigh. "Maybe because I'm still angry at the Batman for actually allowing someone new to become Robin…"
"Yeah, I heard about that. What's the kid's story?"
Dick grimaced. "I don't know. I might go down to Gotham and check this new one out. Might have to confront Batman about this, too. But given how close-lipped he can be at times…" He then smirked. "Then again, it's not so surprising for him."
"What do you mean?" Scott asked.
"Before I ever became Robin, he worked alone. Save for one man and one woman — his butler and the woman who was there when the night that changed his life happened — he was a lone hunter on the streets. Only had to care for himself. It became easy for him to compartment things, even when he became part of the Justice League." As Scott nodded, Dick added, "He mellowed out a bit when I became his partner. Became a little more open. He couldn't keep it boxed in anymore. And then…"
"You grew up."
"Yeah," Dick hoarsely stated. "We teamed up with the Outsiders not so long ago to deal with the Fearsome Five. Found out Tara's relation to the Markovian royal family; her half-brother is Geo-Force of the Outsiders. She did her part…but if what really happened to her was true…" He closed his eyes. "My God…"
"Incredible luck. Just like us with 'Jean.'"
Dick nodded; Scott had told him the truth of the entity that had called herself "Jean Grey" and had served as Phoenix in the X-Men for over a year. "How is she?"
"Jean's fine. She's happy as hell to have a 'twin sister' in Anne. And to be living her own life again." As both men chuckled — having seen Anne Grey coddle Logan when they got aboard Captain Kythran Jubčr's starship had been one hell of a good laugh for the Titans after what they had just been through — Scott added, "She'll recover. I hope she does. If what the Imperial Guard told us about what MIGHT have happened to the D'Bari star is true…" A sigh. "There but for the Grace of God go I."
"Amen."
Both men relaxed as they sipped their Red Bull. After a moment, Scott then mused, "Frightening, aren't they?" As Dick looked at him, he added, "Tara's friends."
A nod. "Like every nightmare normal people have had about metahumans — mutants and mutates alike — magnified a million-fold." Dick had overheard an ecstatic Koriand'r explain the story of the natives of Yiziba to Slade Wilson before the Titans parted ways with their former opponent and the father of their newest member. "We need to learn more about them. Learn the history of that planet. What the HELL provoked all this in the first place. The Dire Wraiths have something to do with it…"
"So do these Manhunters that hurt Tara so much."
Another nod. "Yeah…"
Manhattan, the penthouse suite of Slade J. Wilson…
"Adeline, put the gun down, please. There's no need for this."
Hearing that calm voice from the man she once loved with all her heart — and now felt nothing but loathing for given what happened to their sons — Adeline Kane snarled as she spun her Colt Commander over to point at the man in the black-and-gold uniform nearby. "Why the hell aren't you in prison, Slade?!" she snarled.
"The Titans and I reached an agreement over our issues," Deathstroke — who had slipped off his mask to reveal a haggard face that, to William Wintergreen's expert eyes, had aged ten years all at once — calmly declared as he placed his weapons pack down on a table, then moved over to pour himself a stiff shot of brandy. "Be assured, they've accepted Joseph as their newest member. Isn't that what you want for him?"
Adeline blinked. "Are you alright?" she then asked before catching herself, inwardly cursing for allowing her still-strong feelings for this man to swell forth.
"No."
"What's wrong, Slade?" Wintergreen demanded.
A sigh. "Has a woman called 'Nexus' contacted you, Bill?"
The retired British Army colonel gaped; Slade NEVER called him by given name, much less a nickname. He then straightened himself before he walked over to the private communications suite. "Just a moment…what the devil?!" he called out.
"What?" Slade demanded.
Wintergreen blinked. "My God…"
"A message?"
A nod. "Yes. 'From Nexus to Deathstroke: Mercenaries have a hard enough life as is. No need to see you bilked for the bill owed to you by the H.I.V.E. By the way, Terra sends her love. She'll be in Japan or on Yiziba…' — Where the devil is THAT?! — '…in the immediate future. Call me if you need her. Signed Nexus.'" He then tapped a control to bring up the link to the e-mail that had just been received from somewhere…and then his pale blue eyes went VERY wide. "Dear God!"
"What?" Slade asked.
Wintergreen stared at his old friend. "Two hundred-and-fifty million dollars…!"
Slade gaped as Adeline blinked…and then the former began to laugh. "Damn it! That's some gal!" he then whooped before he toasted his ex-wife and his best friend. "Here's to Tara Markova! Terra of the New Teen Titans and Landslide of Yiziba! The finest kid mercenary and assassin money could ever buy!" He laughed again.
Adeline and Wintergreen watched him, both wondering what was going on…
Titans Tower…
A knock. "Yo, Tara!"
"It's open!"
The door to Tara Markova's room opened up to reveal Cyborg and Troia. Gazing at the younger woman as she put the last of her clothes into a dufflebag, the scientist's son breathed out. She was quick to note that the woman born Donna Troy has dressed down, though the man born Victor Stone couldn't dress down given his cybernetic state. "You don't have to go, you know," Victor then said. "We can still use you."
"You're scared of me." Tara then smirked. "I don't blame you guys, though."
Victor and Donna jerked. "Damn it, girl…!" the former then flustered.
"Vic, look," Tara said as she gazed at them. "I'm not the scared kid I pretended to be when I joined up with you guys. Hell, I'm not even the psycho-sociopath that Slade believed I was." She closed her eyes. "Before I was Gifted, I was a mutant like Joe or any of the X-Men. My father's family had the ability to make use of the power of the Earth…but legends had it that magic had to be used to trigger the gift. Or science as Jace discovered. That's how Brion got his powers. Me? They all came naturally. I was ten. Just found out the truth about my parents; I'd run away from my guardians home and found myself on the streets of San Francisco." A snort. "Dumb choice, but I was hurt and angry. And then this guy came along. And he…"
Victor paled as Donna squeezed her eyes closed. "Oh, shit!" the former spat.
"Don't tell me…" the latter pleaded.
"Well, I didn't want to give out," Tara admitted. "And my powers kicked in. Seems my real mom had the right type of DNA to make Dad's gift come out naturally. I killed him…" She then stopped. "And it was a fuckin' RUSH, guys! So incredible…" A chuckle. "Ya know, I could have become what Jade made me into…
"And then he came into my life."
"Moroboshi?" Victor asked.
"Yeah. I was on the streets and going hungry…and without reason, this kid in a black gi offers me a submarine sandwich." She smirked. "I took it…but since I wasn't in the trusting mood at the time, I decided to make sure he wouldn't hurt me." A chuckle. "Oh, fuck! That was a dumb thing for me to do!"
"What happened?" Donna asked.
A laugh. "NEVER attack a master of Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū, Donna!" Tara warned. "They can manipulate the ki of the earth itself like it was silly-putty. Just like I do with geo-kinesis. I tried to hit him with a lava-blast…and he snared me with a psychic kusarigama and had me swinging from a tree!" As the other Titans gaped, the mercenary added, "Then he yanks off my shoes and socks and started TICKLING me!"
"Oh, my God!" Donna exclaimed. "You must have been mad!"
"I was! Believe me, I was!" Tara admitted. "And there I was, smart-ass ten year-old kid cursing out this creepy Jap guy with every bit of street slang I knew…and he just SMILED at me!" As Victor and Donna exchanged amused looks, the Markovian-American nodded. "Yep! It's all true! And then, when he got tired of leaving me hanging up there — goes to show that he IS a gentleman in his own way! — he tells me this:
"'Pretty girls like you shouldn't be living on the streets all alone.'"
Silence.
"Oh, my…a white knight," Donna said before she snickered.
"'Cept he was wearing black," Victor noted. "Some sort of martial arts school?"
"Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū. Literally, 'Path of the Supreme Life.' His adopted sister Negako is the grandmaster," Tara provided. "Well, after I kinda decided he was an okay guy, he took me on this WILD trip to this dōjō. 'Cept that this dōjō was on a fuckin' 'nother PLANET three hundred light-years from here!" As the other Titans gaped, she smiled at them. "Met Miss Negako — And PLEASE! Don't call her 'sensei!' She can probably drop-kick Superman into the Sun if she wanted to! — who then found out what happened to me and did some ki treatments to let me recover from my powers coming on like they did. And then Ataru took me to the Cave to become Landslide."
"A big change?" the Child of the Titans of Myth asked.
"Mostly control. The battle experiences of TWENTY-NINE other lifetimes; I'm the thirtieth Landslide." The Sculptor of Granite sniffed. "And the realisation that I killed someone. Someone who wouldn't come back thanks to the Crystal of Power."
Sensing Tara look down, Donna instantly swept her into her arms. Victor watched them as the older woman held the young teenager-who-wasn't-a-teenager anymore, and then he turned as his cybernetic eye took note of the small green fly fluttering nearby…
Raven's quarters…
"Can Raven be restored to full function, Ataru?" Anne Grey asked.
"I think so, Anne-chan," Ataru mused as he pulled his fingers away from Raven's face. "Her dad's influence is quite strong…and it's been growing, hasn't it?"
A nod. "It has, Ataru. Being so close to such violent people all the time…" Raven then closed her eyes. "I do not wish this to happen, but I fear…"
"Relax. If push comes to shove, we'll sic Ayumu on Trigon and she'll give him a spanking, then get Haruhi to seal off his home dimension."
Raven blinked. "Ayumu…the Infinite One…a most fascinating person indeed."
"You've met?" he asked.
A sigh. "No, but before you were manipulated into becoming the Oni child's 'perfect husband,' I sensed her from time to time. As did others who deal with metaphysical matters and magical issues such as Stephen Strange and Zatanna Zatara." Raven closed her dark eyes. "Such a pure soul…and it remains uncorrupted by the power she welds. I have sensed Galactus whenever he has come to this world — and there was the matter with Darkseid as well — but Kasuga Ayumu is truly unique as cosmic beings come." She then hummed. "I see this other image as well. People mistake it as young Chiyo's father…and yet, it is clearly unlike any being I have ever seen…"
Ataru then laughed. "Looks like an orange cat-like humanoid with stringy arms?"
"Yes! What sort of creature is that, anyway…?"
A snicker. "That IS Chiyo-chan's dad, Raven!"
The empath blinked. "How…?"
He took a moment to compose himself. "After I helped Chiyo become Cerebral Child — that was her old battle-name — she was so excited at what she became, she dragged her father to Yiziba to show him the Great Crystal in the Cave of the Future. He touched it…and became Ghost Walker. A living non-corporeal spirit who can sense out people's dreams and enter them if he wanted to. Unfortunately, Chiyo-chan's classmate Sakaki Kiyomi — she's Lady Lofting; animals call her the All-Speaker — started having odd dreams of a creature like the one you saw in your visions that claimed he was Chiyo-chan's father. And poor Mihama-ojisan…" Another laugh.
"Oh, dear…" Raven breathed out.
"Oh, don't be concerned, young lady," a strange voice then said.
Raven yelped, and then she turned…
…to find herself staring wide-eyed at the very creature that had long haunted the dreams of a certain cat-lover in Nakano! "Hey, Oji-san," Ataru called out as Anne blinked several times as she tried to compare this odd being with any sort of physical relation to one Mihama Chiyo. "Were you affected by all this?"
"Sadly so through an empathic bond with my daughter, Ataru-kun," the man born Mihama Kenji replied as he morphed into his human self, revealing him to be a middle-aged man with receding brown hair and brown eyes, dressed now in casual clothing. "A pity. But from what I sensed, young Kiyomi's dreams of me have still continued." He then cringed. "'Father hats'…that actually made me cringe!"
Ataru blinked. "Eh…?"
"Otō-san! What are you doing here?!"
Ataru turned as the door opened to reveal Chiyo…
…and then he winced as he sensed a shift of ki energy from nearby. "Oh, boy."
"WHAT THE FLAMIN' HELL IS THAT?!"
"LOGAN-SAN!" Chiyo snarled as she glared wrathfully — which was STILL as cute as the dickens — at Wolverine, who had followed the young genius down to Raven's room with the other X-Men and many of the other Titans. "That's my FATHER! Leave him alone!"
The people who just came in blinked, and then they all looked at Chiyo before turning to gaze upon her transformed father. "Your sire, friend Chiyo?" Koriand'r asked.
By then, the Azuma Gang and the others came in. "Oh, Oji-san! What are you doing here?" Yomi asked as she spared the X-Men and Titans an amused look.
"Yo, Oji-chan!" Tomo whooped.
"Good to see you again, Mihama-san," Shinobu said, bowing.
"Indeed, Lord Kenji. It appears the spirits are still kind to you," Pansy noted.
As Ataru gave them all warning looks and Chiyo tried not to blush in embarrassment, her father chuckled. "Hello, girls!" the transformed Ghost Walker stated as he waved his arm while the X-Men and the Titans all turned to stare at him, and then back to Chiyo, and then back to her father. "I see you didn't head out with young Kiyomi-chan today."
"She was busy using Rupa's pigs to get rid of those mushrooms," Kagura stated. "So what's happening? Has Lum finally clued in to reality or is it fight scene time?"
A sigh. "Sadly, it's gotten worse, Michiko-chan. Young Haruhi-chan made a most disturbing discovery in Tomobiki. Since Ayumu-chan is busy now…"
"What did she find?" Ataru demanded.
He told him…
On the roof and in Tara's old quarters, the people there all winced in shock on hearing a scream of, "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!" bellow from Raven's room.
And as people got filled in on the details, we now…
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(Posted Mon, 09 Apr 2012 03:08)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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